Who is recognized as the founder of psychoanalytic child psychology, emphasizing the ego and its social development?

• A. Sigmund Freud
• B. Anna Freud
• C. Carl Jung
• D. Erik Erikson

Answer: (B)

Psychoanalytic work with children and how the ego develops within social contexts is what this item targets. Anna Freud is recognized as the founder of psychoanalytic child psychology. Building on her father Sigmund Freud's ideas, she specialized in child analysis and focused on how the ego helps children cope with reality, navigate defenses, and adapt to the social world of family and school. This emphasis on the ego's functioning in children within their social environment is why she is the best fit for this description. While Sigmund Freud started psychoanalysis and Erik Erikson later highlighted social development of the ego across life stages, the specific creation and growth of psychoanalytic child psychology is attributed to Anna Freud. Carl Jung contributed a different branch of psychoanalysis and did not center on early childhood ego development in the same way.